Friday, March 14, 2008

Harvesting Algae for Biofuels

Algae are the fastest-growing plants in the world. Like other plants, they use photosynthesis to harness sunlight and carbon dioxide, creating high-value compounds in the process. Energy is stored inside the cell as lipids and carbohydrates, and can be converted into fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol. Proteins produced by algae make them valuable ingredients for animal feed.

GreenFuel uses a portfolio of technologies to profitably recycle CO2 from smokestack, fermentation, and geothermal gases via naturally occurring species of algae. Algae can be converted to transportation fuels and feed ingredients or recycled back to a combustion source as biomass for power generation. Industrial facilities need no internal modifications to host a GreenFuel algae farm. In addition, the system does not require fertile land or potable water.

A GreenFuel installation requires no retooling of existing facilities. Ongoing site operations are not interrupted, and the host facility is not exposed to hazardous materials or other risks.

A single pass through the GreenFuel system significantly reduces carbon dioxide in the waste gas. Using the sun as a source of energy, algae convert the CO2 into valuable compounds. Growing up to 30 times faster than other terrestrial plants, algae are regularly harvested for conversion into biofuels, feed, or can be recycled back to the host facility. Recycling algae in a closed system reduces the need for fossil fuels.

http://www.greenfuelonline.com/index.html

Ethanol's Affect On Food Prices

The recent rise in corn prices--almost 70 percent in the past six months--caused by the increased demand for ethanol biofuel has come much sooner than many agriculture economists had expected.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, this year the country is going to use 18 to 20 percent of its total corn crop for the production of ethanol, and by next year that will jump to 25 percent. And that increase, says Marshall Martin, an agriculture economist at Purdue University, "is the main driver behind the price increase for corn."

The jump in corn prices is already affecting the cost of food. The most notable example: in Mexico, which gets much of its corn from the United States, the price of corn tortillas has doubled in the past year, according to press reports, setting off large protest marches in Mexico City. It's almost certain that most of the rise in corn prices is due to the U.S. ethanol policy, says David Victor, director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University.

The rising food costs fueled by ethanol demand are also affecting U.S. consumers. "All things that use corn are going to have higher prices and higher cost, to some extent, that will be passed on to consumers," says Wally Tyner, professor of agriculture economics at Purdue University. The impact of this is being felt first in animal feed, particularly poultry and pork. Poultry feed is about two-thirds corn; as a result, the cost to produce poultry--both meat and eggs--has already risen about 15 percent due to corn prices, says Tyner. Also expect corn syrup--used in soft drinks--to get more expensive, he says.

The situation will only get worse, says David Pimentel, a professor in the department of entomology at Cornell University. "We have over a hundred different ethanol plants under construction now, so the situation is going to get desperate," he says. Adding to the worries about corn-related food prices is President Bush's ambitious goal, announced in his last State of the Union address, that the United States will produce 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017.

Still, some suggest that the overheated ethanol market could soon cool down. "Politicians will see that, first of all, it is not helping our oil independence," says Pimentel. "It is increasing the price of food for people in the U.S., it is costing an enormous sum of money for everyone, and it is contributing to environmental problems. But I can imagine it is going to take another year or more before politicians realize they have a major disaster on their hands."

Thursday, March 13, 2008

More Ethanol Will Expand Gulf of Mexico 'Dead Zone'





Ramping up ethanol production for alternative fuels will worsen the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, a stretch of water unable to support aquatic life, according to a report co-written by the University of British Columbia.

The U.S. Senate's recently announced plan to triple production of ethanol made from corn starch by 2022 will increase the zone by 10 to 19 per cent from the 20,000-square-kilometres — an area roughly the size of New Jersey — it has recently occupied, the report said.

The U.S. Senate wants to ramp up ethanol made from corn starch in order to alleviate the country's dependence on oil.The U.S. Senate wants to ramp up ethanol made from corn starch in order to alleviate the country's dependence on oil.


"This rush to expand corn production is a disaster for the Gulf of Mexico," said Simon Donner, an assistant professor in UBC's geography department, in a statement. "The U.S. energy policy will make it virtually impossible to solve the problem of the dead zone."

The problem stems from the nitrogen and phosphorus found in agricultural fertilizer, which can cause excess growth of algae in bodies of water, the researchers said. When that algae decomposes, it can consume much of the oxygen in the water.

Fertilizer being used in much of the U.S. agricultural heartland, such as Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin, is the primary source of pollution in the Mississippi River system, which drains into the Gulf of Mexico. Every summer, that nitrogen is deposited in the Gulf, where the dead zone forms.

Donner and Chris Kucharik of the University of Wisconsin came to their conclusions by combining agricultural land-use scenarios with models of terrestrial and aquatic nitrogen cycling. Their work appears in Monday's edition of the Proceedings of the National Journal of Sciences.

"The nitrogen levels in the Mississippi will be more than twice the recommendation for the Gulf," Donner said.

Boosting ethanol production without increasing the amount of nitrogen in the Mississippi will require "radical shifts in feed production, diet and agricultural land management," the report said.

Corn planting may have to be moved into other states or less of the crop would have to be used to feed cattle, which would also mean less meat consumption by people.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Cattle Fed Byproducts Of Ethanol Production Harbor Dangerous E. Coli Bacteria

Researchers have found that cattle fed distiller's grain have an increased prevalence of E. coli 0157 in their hindgut. (Credit: Web Doodle, LLC)
Researchers have found that cattle fed distiller's grain have an increased prevalence of E. coli 0157 in their hindgut. (Credit: Web Doodle, LLC)
Ethanol plants and livestock producers have created a symbiotic relationship. Cattle producers feed their livestock distiller's grains, a byproduct of the ethanol distilling process, giving ethanol producers have an added source of income.

But recent research at Kansas State University has found that cattle fed distiller's grain have an increased prevalence of E. coli 0157 in their hindgut. This particular type of E. coli is present in healthy cattle but poses a health risk to humans, who can acquire it through undercooked meat, raw dairy products and produce contaminated with cattle manure.

"Distiller's grain is a good animal feed. That's why ethanol plants are often built next to feedlots," said T.G. Nagaraja, a professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology at K-State's College of Veterinary Medicine.

The growth in ethanol plants means more cattle are likely to be fed distiller's grain, therefore harboring 0157 and potentially a source of health risks to humans, Nagaraja said. That's why he and Jim Drouillard, K-State professor of animal sciences, have been collaborating on testing distiller's grain-fed cattle for 0157. Nagaraja and Drouillard, who studied the carcass quality of cattle fed distiller's grain, are joined by Megan Jacob, a K-State doctoral student in pathobiology. Through three rounds of testing, Nagaraja said the prevalence of 0157 was about twice as high in cattle fed distiller's grain compared with those cattle that were on a diet lacking the ethanol byproduct.

"This is a very interesting observation and is likely to have profound implications in food safety," Nagaraja said.

Food safety and animal health are research priorities at K-State, which since 1999 has dedicated more than $70 million on research related to animal health and food safety. More than 150 K-Staters are actively involved in these areas.

Nagaraja said research in the next few years will focus on finding out why 0157 is more prevalent in cattle fed a distiller's grain diet. He said it could be something that changes in the animals' hindgut as a result of feeding distiller's grains, or maybe the byproduct provides a nutrient for the bacteria.

"Feeding cattle distiller's grain is a big economic advantage for ethanol plants," Nagaraja said. "We realize we can't tell cattle producers, 'Don't feed distiller's grain.' What we want to do is not only understand the reasons why 0157 increases, but also find a way to prevent that from happening."

Outdoor And Arts Amendment

Outdoors, arts amendment heads to ballot
by Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio
February 14, 2008

Minnesota voters will decide this fall whether to raise the state sales tax to benefit the outdoors and arts.

St. Paul, Minn. — The House and Senate voted overwhelming Thursday to pass a consitutional amendment bill that failed to get through last year's session. If approved by voters in November, the measure would dedicate millions of dollars to enhance specific state resources, including wildlife habitat and arts and cultural programs.

The Nov. 4 statewide ballot will ask voters if they want to amend the Minnesota constitution to include a dedicated funding provision to protect hunting and fishing habitats, water sources, parks and trails, and the state's arts and cultural heritage. The sales tax increase of three eighths of one percent would generate nearly $300 million a year for 25 years.

Monday, March 10, 2008

More Ethanol Scam News

The Ethanol Scam
By ROBERT BRYCE

The ethanol scam just keeps getting more and more absurd. In January, three U.S. senators ­ two Democrats, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barack Obama of Illinois, along with Indiana Republican Richard Lugar ­ introduced a bill that would promote the use of ethanol. It also mandates the use of more biodiesel and creates tax credits for the production of cellulosic ethanol. They called their bill the "American Fuels Act of 2007."

The most amazing part of the press release trumpeting the legislation is its fourth paragraph, in which Lugar declares that "U.S. policies should be targeted to replace hydrocarbons with carbohydrates."

Let's consider that for a moment. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the U.S. economy was primarily based on carbohydrates. For most people, horses were the main mode of transportation. They were also a primary work source for plowing and planting. Aside from coal, which was used by the railroads and in some factories, the U.S. economy depended largely on the ability of draft animals to turn grass and forage into usable toil. America's farmers were solely focused on producing food and fiber. And while the U.S. was moderately prosperous, it was not a world leader.

Oil changed all that. After the discovery of vast quantities of oil in Texas, Oklahoma, and other locales, America was able to create a modern transportation system, with cars, buses, and airplanes. That oil helped the U.S. become a dominant military power. Humans were freed from the limitations of the carbohydrate economy, which was constrained by the amount of arable land.

Thus while Lugar and his ilk promote ethanol, they are ignoring a pivotal question: should our farms produce food or fuel?

Last September, Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute (a group that promotes "an environmentally sustainable economy") wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece that the amount of grain needed to make enough ethanol to fill a 25-gallon SUV tank "would feed one person for a full year. If the United States converted its entire grain harvest into ethanol, it would satisfy less than 16 percent of its automotive needs." Brown said the ongoing ethanol boom in the U.S. was "setting the stage for an epic competition. In a narrow sense, it is one between the world's supermarkets and its service stations." More broadly, "it is a battle between the world's 800 million automobile owners, who want to maintain their mobility, and the world's 2 billion poorest people, who simply want to survive."

Using food to make fuel bothers many analysts, and whether their affiliation is liberal or conservative doesn't seem to matter. Dennis Avery, director of global food issues at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C., has concerns that are remarkably similar to Brown's. A few days after Brown's piece appeared in the Post, Avery published a paper showing that ethanol simply cannot provide enough motor fuel to make a significant difference in America's fuel consumption. And like Brown, he laid bare the essential question: food or fuel?

"The real conflict over cropland in the 21st century," wrote Avery, "will set people's desire for biofuels against their altruistic desire that all the children on the planet be well-nourished." He continued, "The world's total cropland resources seem totally inadequate to the vast size of the energy challenge. We would effectively be burning food as auto fuel in a world that is not fully well-fed now, and whose food demand will more than double in the next 40 years." Avery says that even if the U.S. adopted biofuels as the antidote for imported crude oil, "It would take more than 546 million acres of U.S. farmland to replace all of our current gasoline use with corn ethanol."

That's a huge area, especially considering that the total amount of American cropland covers about 440 million acres.

But the constraints imposed by the amount of arable land in the U.S. are not important to the politicos on both the Left and the Right who insist that America must be "energy independent." For the apparatchiks who worship at the altar of ethanol, no subsidy is too great, no corn field is too big, as they push their bilge about the perils of foreign oil. None of them bother with pesky facts, like this one: the U.S. was a net crude oil importer way back in 1913. In fact, since 1913, the U.S. has been a net crude oil importer in all but nine of those years.

Thus, while farmers, politicos, and Big Agriculture insist on casting the ethanol scam in terms of national security, the evils of foreign oil, and the benefits of ethanol to rural communities, the larger issue is a moral one: are we going to use our precious farmland to grow food, or are we going to subsidize the growth of an industry that turns food into a commodity, motor fuel, of which we already have an abundant supply?

The answer should be obvious.

Robert Bryce lives in Austin, Texas and managing editor of Energy Tribune. He is the author of Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate. He can be reached at: robert@robertbryce.com